


In Search of Lost Waffle-Time

by FireWithFire



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Failwolf Friday, Hale Family Feels, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Making waffles, Manpain, Stilinski Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 02:30:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireWithFire/pseuds/FireWithFire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek tries to force himself to break one serious barrier - do with Stiles what his family used to do long time ago - make waffles for breakfast. Which won't be that easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Search of Lost Waffle-Time

Stiles woke up to a very weird smell. He’d spent yet another night at Derek’s, and he got used to it smelling like Derek, like wooden furniture and not much more. This time, he could smell something burning, but something sweet, too, maybe something sweet that was burning. And melted butter? Honestly, it smelled almost as if the Spanish inquisition finally caught Gingerbread Man, accused him of witchcraft and had just started the fire under his stake.

 

He looked around to find something to wear, but his clothes from yesterday were pretty dirty from all the forest-walking they had to do. So, he dug into Derek’s drawers and found a large (like, ridiculously large) T-shirt. From the looks of it, it was at least a hundred sizes too big for Derek, unless he’d been seriously overweight, even if whale-standards, as a teenager and somehow got hot and ripped in the meantime. Yeah, like that’s possible. Even if you’re a werewolf. Or is is?

 

Stiles put the shirt on. It was more like a dress _(Or a robe! You’re a wizard, Gandalf the Navy Blue!)_ on him. It ended much closer to his knees that to his hips, and the collar was so stretched out it kept falling off one of his shoulders. But hey, he wasn’t going to strut the catwalk, he was going to check whether his technically impaired boyfriend hadn’t started a serious fire downstairs. The loft could be really flammable, come to think of it.

 

*

 

Derek woke up early. Well, not exactly early, but earlier than Stiles, not that’s any kind of an achievement. Kid could sleep till 4PM if given a chance. He turned his head to the left and took a long look at Stiles, sleeping with his cheek pressed against Derek’s arm. Alpha softly stroked his hair and kissed his forehead before slipping out of the bed and sneaking downstairs.

 

Oh, no, a second, his plan for this morning requires a proper uniform. At least a shirt and sweatpants. He grabbed them and quietly went down.

 

That was something he had planned weeks ago, but then all that moving, furniture shopping, new dangers arose in and near Beacon Hills one by one, and it kind of got postponed.

 

Also, it was quite a step for him. He had to break a whole lot of his own inhibitions and face a crapload of his inner demons for that. This was the morning he’d make Stiles waffles for breakfast.

 

*

 

Derek hadn’t eaten waffles in almost ten years.

 

About ten years ago was the last time his mother had made waffles for her kids, one Sunday morning. The house smelled of maple syrup and butter, jam and chocolate. They each got a cup of cocoa, too, the real one, made with milk. He remembered that as well as if it happened just the day before. All of them sitting at this huge table in the kitchen, the ancient waffle iron their mother got from her mother years ago. It made the meanest waffles, and weighed a ton and a half. Supposedly, his grandma got one from Europe. It was a real antique.

 

It also hadn’t burned down in the house fire years ago. It was stored somewhere in the corner of the basement, where nobody had ever looked, until Derek was moving out and gathering everything of importance and value. Material and emotional. When he found the iron, he teared up like a little kid. He sat on a crate in the basement for good two hours before he could walk out. This old, ancient even, appliance brought back one emotional hell after another.

 

He couldn’t not remember the smells, the tastes of that Sunday morning. Then he realised - he would never have them again. There’s no kitchen in the house, there’s no family to sit at the table. All he had left was Peter. But all of them, mom, dad, Laura, they were long gone. No one left to help him recreate what he’d lost.

 

He knew his mother’s old recipe for waffles. It only worked on this machine, maybe because of its temperature, maybe because the machine was conservative and possessive. But he knew he’d always remember that taste. Never again could he so much as look at waffles without feeling his heart thrashing against his ribs and a sudden painful pang in his stomach.

 

It took him a year and a half before he learned how to suppress all the guilt and grief whenever he passed a diner in the morning. Two years and three months before he realised that it wasn’t cocoa’s fault that all that happened won’t happen ever again. Three years and eighteen days to finally be able to look at people having waffles.

 

Almost ten years before he felt ready to actually eat one.

 

And the one he decided to eat it with was Stiles.

 

Derek hoped he wouldn’t get nauseated like four years ago, when he tried to get a waffle in a restaurant. He was almost sure he wouldn’t.

 

Because right now, he had someone who could help him recreate what it feels like to have a breakfast waffle with someone you love and care about.

 

*

 

Forty minutes later, Derek believed that the iron must’ve been cursed. He wasted three bowls of batter and had to clean the iron twice. None of the things he did went right.

 

The first bowl was full of batter that was too runny. It wouldn’t stick to the iron and he made a hell of a mess.

 

The second one was just not right. It’s not like it was too sweet, but didn’t quite taste like it was supposed to. It was just wrong. Not the taste Derek remembered from many years and many breakfasts ago. He didn’t even bother to try and bake it. He just poured it out and started anew.

 

Third bowl of batter was weird. Seconds after being poured onto the iron, it just burned to hell, created a lot of smoke and filled the kitchen with the smell of burning sugar. Derek ripped the plug of the iron from the wall and threw the machine into the sink. Water sizzled on the hot surface, a plume of steam bursted towards the ceiling, and a wooden spoon broke in Derek’s hand. He threw its remains across the loft.

 

That’s the exact moment that Stiles chose to get down from the bedroom.

 

“What’s with the throwing? Is everything okay?”, he asked, standing next to Derek.

 

“No, nothing is okay,” Derek growled, clenching his fingers on the counter. “I tried to make breakfast, but I failed horribly.”

 

“What were you making? Pancakes? Waffles? Jesus, what’s that in the sink, are you washing your Panzerfaust?”

 

“I was making waffles. It’s my grandma’s waffle iron.”

 

“Oh, God, I haven’t had homemade waffles in, like, years. Ever since my mom...”, he stopped, looking away.

 

Derek felt like an ultimate moron. Every mother in Beacon Hills took pride in her waffles. Every mother in Beacon Hills made a point of making her children waffles at least a couple times a year. At least or birthdays, first day of school, first day of summer holidays... Of course Stiles’ mom used to make them, too. How could he not think of it?

 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t realise it would be painful for you to--”

 

“What, painful? Why? I’ve had a million waffles since she passed, but only those frozen ones. Dad was never the one to cook, it’s a success he mastered pancakes. I had waffles in diners, in school, why would yours be painful? Unless you mixed shards of glass into the batter, it’s fine.”

 

“Oh. Okay,” Derek said, walking away and sitting on a chair. “Could you, um, help me? I can’t quite figure out the recipe, I thought I remembered it...”

 

“Sure. Hey, what’s up with you?”, Stiles asked, coming close to him and putting his hand on Derek’s neck. “Are you alright?”

 

“Yeah, fine.”

 

“You don’t seem fine...”

 

Derek took a deep breath. All those feelings he’d been battling for weeks before this day came back, rushing like a tidal wave. All that he tried to push aside, so that he could start over, had just come back, and possibly could ruin everything.

 

No, it couldn’t. It was dumb to worry about all that. Derek realised how silly he must sound to Stiles. He felt stupid himself.

 

“It’s just-- It’s the first time I’d have those stupid waffles in a decade, or so. I wanted them to be perfect, just like I remembered from--”

 

“From before the fire?”

 

“From when I’d had someone to share them with, like I do now.”

 

Stiles’ heart twitched a little. Derek seemed so vulnerable he could just hug him. And so he did, he sat on Derek’s lap, facing him, and gave him a hug.

 

“Don’t worry. Once I figure out how to operate on your grandma’s tank, we’ll figure out your recipe. How do you make waffles, wolfie?”

 

“A cup and a third of flour,” Derek recited from memory. “Four teaspoons of baking powder, a cup of melted butter, two eggs, separated, whites whisked, almost two cups of milk--”

 

“Wait, what about that butter? How much butter, you said?”

 

“A cup?”

 

“Honey, that’s way too much. I think a half or so would be enough.”

 

“That might be why the first one was so runny?”

 

“Probably, could be. Hey, what do you say we figure out our own recipe for waffles?”

 

“Hey, don’t patronize me, they’re just waffles, not Hales’ Crown Jewels. We can have anything you want for breakfast, screw the waffles,” Derek said, trying not to sound too touched by Stiles’ offer. It was painfully important to him, but he’d rather die than admit that aloud.

 

Thankfully, Stiles didn’t need to hear it to know.

 

“Shut up, Derek. We’ll make waffles, end of discussion. Now, give me a kiss, or maybe two, and we’ll get started.”

 

Derek obliged, kissed Stiles softly, dragging his fingers across his cheek and down the exposed neck and shoulder. His other hand wandered up Stiles’ thigh and under the shirt he was wearing, which, by the way, was Derek’s, as far as he remembered.

 

“Wait,” alpha said, stopping the kissing for a minute. He took a couple of seconds to enjoy Stiles’ hands ruffling through his hair before speaking again. “I kind of know the answer already, but I want to hear it from you. Are you wearing any underwear?”

 

“Just the shirt,” Stiles purred, leaning and biting Derek’s ear.

 

That was way hotter than it should be.

 

*

 

“Okay, where’s the shirt I’ve had on?”, Stiles asked, looking around.

 

“Probably the same place mine is,” Derek said, going into the living room area to look. “Aha, told you, here they are. Catch. And go put on some pants, you can’t bake waffles with no pants. You’ll get burned.”

 

“Fiiine. And you go prepare ingredients for the batter. Maybe we can add some cinnamon to it? Or cocoa powder?”, Stiles suggested, walking up the stairs.

 

“Yeah, sounds great,” Derek said, smiling. They were going to make their own, special waffles. For them and for them only.


End file.
